ポインティング行動における空間表象の位置情報の影響

抄録

Song and Nakayama reported that pointing trajectories in a numerical comparison task were influenced by internal competition processes between numeric representations [Cognition 106, 994–1003, 2008]. We tested this phenomenon in two-dimensional representations, such as a clock surface and world map. Our experiments showed that the location of numbers or countries in the representation of the clock surface or the world map influenced the trajectories of pointing task related to the clock surface or the world map. We also found that the influence of the spatial representations on the pointing trajectories for naïve observers was smaller than that for experienced observers at all the phases of the pointing trajectories. The experienced observers in our study had knowledge as to Song and Nakayama’s study but the naïve observers did not. Although this may suggest that the phenomenon found by Song and Nakayama might depend on higher cognitive processes such as knowledge, we found that low level implicit processes also play a role. More robust and clearer influence of the spatial representations on pointing trajectories was found at the earlier phase of the pointing trajectories both for naïve and experienced observers. Considering that the pointing action is implicitly and automatically controlled at the earlier phase, our results suggest that twodimensional spatial representations also influence action implicitly.